


grody time

by NightmareLane



Series: warframe drabbles [1]
Category: Warframe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-29 20:33:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20442104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightmareLane/pseuds/NightmareLane
Summary: a drabble for a warframe rp server. makes more sense with context, but hey, enjoy it if you please.





	grody time

Gold. Bright, shiny gold, piercing through the clinical white of the ceiling Zuddah stared up at, separating it into symmetrical segments. It was the same ceiling they had stared at for the last five years, during their service to the Orokin, and nothing about it was any different today. Same too-clean ceiling, same thin blankets, same uncomfortably small room. With a sigh, they pulled themself out of bed and readied themself for the day, grimacing as they tugged each starchy layer of clothing on. The collar of their lab coat was always too stiff, and their vest was always too tight, but it was that or being kicked out completely and this was the only opportunity they had to avoid becoming- well. No need to go down that train of thought so early.

Same lab, with the scent of disinfectant choking anyone that came in and the insistence to line even the equipment in gold. Same insufferable scientists, too haughty to bother with anything important. Zuddah knew better than to say anything about it, keeping their head down and noting down whatever was dictated to them, fetching whatever those old fools needed.

The crack of a vial. Shouting. An alarm sounding off. Walls crumbled around them, white fading to a dusty grey, pustules of _something_ sprouting from the cracks in the floor. Gold soured to black, and red bloomed across their vision. Trying to tap into the Void only gave sparks for the effort; in the distance, they could hear the shouts and screams of whoever else was in the building, mingling with something else not quite human.

It felt like they were trapped in that room for years before anything came for them- a nightmare in gold, accompanied by a spectre in red. The knight reached out to Zuddah with hands more like talons, stained with blood, and they scrambled to get away- straight into the spectre’s arms. She scooped them up in a grasp too tight, ignoring their screams, and spread rotten wings wide--

And then they woke up with a gasp, crumpled on the floor of their Orbiter, the shreds of…. something slipping from their mind. “Zama-” They managed to say before falling into a fit of coughs, their Cephalon fretting away as he always did.

“Zama, diagnostic scan.” They mumbled once they could breathe again, knowing they were in no state to try and do anything like that themself. While the Cephalon busied himself with his scans, they tried to take sort of what had happened, how they ended up in such a state. They could remember going to Eris, calling for Saryn, and then- and then-

And then? Troubling. It explained why they were ill, if they linked with Saryn for any extended period of time. The scans came back as unclear as ever, which was typical all things considered, but something seemed different. Wrong. This didn’t feel like the typical feedback sickness they suffered from and it would be a lie to say Zuddah wasn’t concerned. They almost felt blurry around the edges, as if they couldn’t keep all the pieces that made Zuddah contained in one person.

With a groan, they pushed themself to their feet. Cleaning up would help, and from there, some kind of food. A step forward and something went ‘crunch-squish’ under their boot. They looked down and stared blankly for a moment at the disease that had been slowly spreading from where they’d been laying, jagged edges of infected matter growing from the floor of their Orbiter. Void energy, their own diseased power, seemed to bleed from their fingertips, dissolving into the air.

Zuddah sat back down. Maybe they were just having another bad dream. They had control over their powers, it would never get this bad, right? But the spores floating off the growths suggested something else, something Zuddah did not want to think about right then, and they decided maybe they would go back to sleep for a little while longer instead. Maybe, when they woke up, all of this would be gone.


End file.
